TWENTY-EIGHT

I grabbed a chunk of lamb from Naomi’s refrigerator and held it out to the dog.

He hustled toward me and I backed away, through the kitchen, out the door, to the car. At the last moment, with his nose a millimeter from the meat, teeth bared to snatch it from my hand, he hesitated. It was almost as though he knew what was going on.

I moved fast, grabbing his collar and hauling him toward the rear door I’d left open. With only three legs, his balance was off. He half-fell onto the back seat and I shoved him the rest of the way in and slammed the car door behind him. He made a leap for it when I got in, but I managed to block his escape with my body. Shut my own door and locked it, just for good measure. He went crazy then, jumping around and barking, nipping at my arm as I worked the shift so that I nearly went off the road a few times. Fast as I was driving, that would have been a disaster.

When we finally stopped, it took me forever to wrestle him to a point where I could duct-tape his legs—with only three of them, it was like tying up a calf after roping it—and then wind the tape around his muzzle, too. He rolled his eyes around until his gaze found mine, the blue eye cold as steel.

“I’m sorry, buddy,” I said. “Real sorry.” But for what I had to do, he needed to be still. I couldn’t afford anything else going wrong. I threw him over my shoulder so I couldn’t see that accusing stare. He quivered and groaned against me until I released him from his suffering.

Afterward, I drove back home in the dark. For the final time that day, I almost crashed, wrenching the wheel hard to the right when two coyotes sauntered across the road in front of me. The car spun out and came to a stop facing them. They’d stopped in the middle of the road, staring straight at me, square in the beam of the headlights.

But their eyes were flat and dark, not throwing the light back at me. The sound of breathy laughter filled the night.

And no wonder. Because when I finally got back to the house, I found that my scheme had only served to make the woman even more determined to stick around. What I’d done to that dog—it was all for nothing.